Opening Up

I didn’t know how to go about it. I thought I would make it funny and satirical. I once thought of living out each day as a quote. But I just couldn’t get to. Now, I have decided that what I am going to write is going to be purely, genuinely, just me. This blog is going to have all of me in little pieces every week or so. I am going to discover myself right here, with all of you reading into my life. And that’s one of the most courageous things one ever does.

Okay, so a little about me. I am a 22-year-old (23 in a week), who is confused on the outside but sorted on the inside. I am the only daughter of my parents, but it seems like I am the parent and have two kids with contrasting personalities. I also have two dogs. They are females from the same litter, and are equally different. I am final year student of Psychology, with Clinical psychology as my specialization. After university, I work in an NGO for a couple of hours, where I teach under privileged kids. On the weekends, I have my extra classes for GMAT, for I am thinking (but not sure) to pursue an MBA degree after this. I intermittently do a lot of things, for am a Sagittarian and I need much of variety. I love being a jack of all trades, but I guess it is high time I should be a master of one. Other times, I am rescuing all those in need, right from dogs to people to my own self.

When people come to know about me being a volunteer and helping animals and others, they treat me really gently and with much respect. They subtly tell me to not go overboard with this ‘charity’ and they sympathize with the selfless decisions of this young adult. Psychologists would say that my altruism is a high order defense mechanism. Other say I’m oriented towards ‘good karma’. I don’t know how much of this perceived selflessness of mine is actually true. This is for you to decide, after I tell you this little story which takes you and me back into my childhood.

Very recently in my life did I realize that memories are never lost. They may be buried for a while, but not long. Unknowingly, we find a way back to them, seeking or living them until they come rushing back to us. I feel that the first memories of our childhood are like the glasses we wear. We may different things post that age, but all what we see are colored by the very first that we saw.
Let’s go 17 years back (God, I just realized it has been that long!). I see a house in an upper middle-class neighborhood. It was serene and aging neighborhood then. I was one of the few only kids in that area for the five years we lived there. Or atleast, few of the only kids who lived in the houses. The street, however, had plenty of kids.
Okay, so now, let us visualize my house. If you’re facing it, on the left was an empty plot, with an old burned car’s skeleton in the middle of it. It had been abandoned since ages and was so huge and untouched that it had a golden dry vegetation of its own. It seemed quite out of place yet was the home to my first ever best friend of my life. There was a small water drain, partly covered, on the side of it and the house. The plot was bigger than the house, so there was a small part over the drain where it didn’t share wall with the house. The wall there was quite low, and quite poor a barrier for the hyper teenagers who would come over to this side of the plot and jump over it effortlessly. The wall was also low enough for a five-year-old girl (though she was tall for her age) to jump over it with a bit of struggle and initial falls.
In front of the plot was a dhobi, ironing away the clothes and chatting with everyone who would come to him. He was also the father of one of my first playmates.
On the right of the house was basically an extension of the plot. There was a smaller accommodation build on it and had no boundaries between the house and it except for the plants that we would grow there later. The house was just a part of a big plot. The landlord had his own two floored home right behind it, sharing a common wall. Within it was also a narrow parking space.
This house was my home. It was the third place I had lived in till the age of five. It had two bedrooms, a dining room, a sitting room, a porch and the only garden I would be having till today. My parents didn’t own it. We shifted there while our own building was being constructed on our land, in a different and the poshest part of the city. If all my childhood could materialize in one place or thing, it would be this house. If one had to know me, it tour of this place was all they needed.
I can never tell you what I would do there, or what memories I have of that place, in just one blog. For I am just learning to open too. When I recall that time and place, I can look at me playing in the garden there. My mum had said that trees listen and if I just trust enough to feel them, they love you back and give solutions to everything. I used to talk to the plant there, tilling the soil with my little hands. The first Mogra flowers of the season and wearing them on my hair were like gifts to me that kept me beaming all season. The small baby birds there, and them coming to the little feeders I built for them each year were the biggest excitement. I admire who I was, for I made best friends out of our neighbor kids. People kept shifting and new families kept coming in, and they were all my friends. All kids of my maids and servants were my best playmates. All my stuff was theirs and we made up all kinds of games possible. I used to run into the road, and all of them would follow in a line. Mom’s clients would be mostly kids who were differently abled. They were mom’s clients but my friends. My Tommy, my first dog and my first best friend, was born in that deserted plot. He looked out for me for all the while. As a child, I saw a protector in him, one which I never found again like that.

I had a form of communication that went beyond words, to feeling the other one. My group of friends, as you can see, was quite diverse. People call me an ‘empath’ today. Some say I must have had tons of experience in life to understand everyone. I’m not sure if it is that what it takes. It just must be a mom who teaches you to be different, and this universe which never leaves me lonely.
I was an only child, but I never ever felt alone. The universe had so many friends for me.
Even today all so more, if I ever get stuck somewhere, or am sad, a mental tour of this house is all I need. I haven’t still moved out if it and I don’t think I ever will and can. Some undone closures and forced good byes make you what you will be in the future, and this made me that. On my last day here, and the last time I looked at it, I knew what parting from it would do to me. And that was 13 years ago.

I search the same place in this world. I search the house where I can be me. I search for that security, that same freedom, those friends and most importantly, that part of me that I struggle to recover, every day of my life.

This is the most difficult thing I ever had to write, and I just did that.

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2 thoughts on “Opening Up”

It’s really cool that you are pursuing psychology! I’m extremely passionate about psychology as well and have debated going to school for it on and off for a long time. Thank you for sharing a part of yourself and hopefully it helps you to be more comfortable writing.